Burma’s obfuscation hides a nuclear secret

[bananas]

http://www.dvb.no/analysis/burmas-obfuscation-hides-a-nuclear-secret/16069

Burma’s obfuscation hides a nuclear secret
By ROBERT KELLEY
Published: 13 June 2011

Burma recently told visiting US Senator John McCain that it has halted a peaceful nuclear program supported by Russia. This is an inconsequential event designed to obscure the ongoing military nuclear program that is being carried out in secret.

Burma has been flirting with Russia for about a decade over plans to buy a small nuclear research reactor. The intention was announced but no reactor or research laboratory was ever sold. The alleged “Russian support” was simply a commercial agreement to sell facilities to Burma, but Russia made it clear that Burma had to sign modern agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to provide adequate safeguards. Burma has not done so because it is probably already in violation of its old safeguards agreements.

Giving up this “peaceful program” that only existed on paper is obfuscation. The purpose of the reactor was allegedly for basic nuclear industrial research and the production of medical isotopes. This kind of reactor is common in the developing world and has no military significance. But when you consider that Burma is among the world’s lowest countries when it comes to per capita spending on healthcare, it makes no sense that they would be suddenly planning an expensive and complex nuclear medicine project, unless it is for a few elite.

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The man in charge of building the factories used to head Burma’s Department of Atomic Energy; the Burmese engineers building this equipment were told it was part of the military nuclear program. A comprehensive assessment of each of the pieces of equipment shows their possible uses, and when you assemble the known pieces in a step-by-step process it all fits into an industrial uranium production program. The end result of the step-by-step uranium production has nothing whatsoever to do with the “abandoned Russian program”. The factories are also working on missiles which are not peaceful. Will all of these activities stop?

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Robert Kelley is a former director at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Via http://www.nucpros.com/content/burma%E2%80%99s-obfuscation-hides-nuclear-secret